London by Night with Kodak Ektachrome 100
This composition with the Oxo Tower & Sea Containers Restaurant leading down to the Shard worked very well in the square 6x6 format of the Bronica SQ-A. The framing and colours make this my favourite image from the roll. 65s 150mm F11.
When I test out a film stock I always want to shoot as wide of a set of scenarios as possible so that I at least have some reference to come back to when I have a particular idea in mind. Long-time readers of the blog will also know that one of the things I enjoy shooting the most with film is scenes at night in black and white. However it wasn’t until this Petapixel article by John Crane that really got me excited to substitute monochrome for slide film. His images had a distinct feel you don’t get with squeaky clean digital, an aesthetic that reminded me of older Sci-fi films like Blade Runner.
The first image from the roll was actually the interesting arches inside a nearby church. 8s 80mm F16.
Now, the UK hardly has the number of brightly lit, urban metropolises that the US has but there’s plenty enough going on in London for me to experiment. The only downside was the time of the year. It was April, the days were steadily getting longer, Daylight Saving Time was fast approaching and soon I’d need to be in the city much later than I’d like to be for darkness to fall. If I didn’t act quickly, I’d have to wait until Autumn for more convenient hours, which I certainly didn’t want to do. With a quick turnaround I shot my final of five rolls of Kodak Ektachrome 100 to produce the images you see here.
Westminster Cathedral and the only image I managed to take at blue hour. This was a great subject for it with the warm orange lighting and red brickwork contrasting perfectly against the blue sky. 25s 80mm F11.
The strong artificial lighting on the nearby Westminster Abbey gave it an almost ghostly appearance. 8s 150mm F9.0.
Compared to shooting black and white Fuji Acros II 100 I had two challenges: vastly inferior dynamic range and reciprocity failure. Now the former is not necessary a bad thing as slide film has punchier colours and more contrast that can really make things pop, but it also means it is much more difficult to get the exposure right and not blow out the highlights too heavily. Less of an issue if you are shooting bracketed on thirty-six exposures per roll 35mm like John did but in this round of experimentation with 6x6 medium format I just wanted to take one shot of each subject. Although reciprocity failure is hardly bad on Ektachrome (no correction up to 10s) it was nowhere close to the abilities of Acros. With many exposures at 60s or more I had to make an educated guess as to how much compensation I required. From what I remember I mostly erred on the side of 1.5x above metered exposure, which I was still taking with an app on my phone. Hardly ideal!
The London Eye. This was one of two images taken from bridges that suffered from camera shake, although without zooming in you can just about get away with using this image. 90s 80mm F11.
However this image of Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast was much less successful with almost no fine detail and many blown out highlights. I think this image would only work in square format with a dramatic sky reflected in the water. 65s 150mm F11.
Looking at the results I am thrilled as to what came out on the first trial run. My best guesses proved to be rather accurate. Perhaps they are a little overexposed, more could have been done to preserve the brightest areas of the buildings or roads, but it did mean that everything else in the frame was better exposed. There’s always a trade-off when your dynamic range is this limited, that’s part of the creative decision-making process!
Taking this image looking towards the Golden Jubilee Bridge, these buildings are tack sharp and well exposed, although the area of the ground near the bottom is a bit too overexposed. 60s 150mm F11.
The City of London gives photographers their best subject for capturing the bright lights at night. 120s 80mm F16.
Since this shoot, I have learned that Fuji Provia 100 (Fuji’s Ektachrome rival) has the same property at Acros where it requires no exposure compensation up to two minutes. That would make it the ideal film stock to use for long exposures at night and its more magenta colour cast may also create a more dramatic image. In addition, I noticed that a couple of the images suffer from camera shake (both taken on busy bridges) which was probably caused by the endless vibrations from road traffic. Perhaps the shorter exposures from Provia may eliminate some of this. I currently have two boxes sitting in my freezer waiting for the longer nights of Autumn and I’ll definitely be taking a roll or two out at night in the big city.
Without the rumbling of traffic this shot of St Paul’s Cathedral from the Millennium Bridge came out sharp. 75s 150mm F11.
Looking towards Lambeth Bridge also gives a plethora of subjects for this kind of photography. I definitely need to make better use of the reflective water with a dramatic sunrise and sunset. 90s 150mm F11.
I’m really glad I made the effort to go out when I did, it has given me a lot more inspiration for photography later in the year and it is always exciting to do something you’ve not done before. I can definitely see blue hour being the most exciting time to repeat this shoot, not just for more dramatic colours but also a scene with a lower dynamic range than night that would better suit slide film. For that though I would need to do more research to find the right subject at the right time of day, morning or evening. Looks like I’ll have to spend more time out photographing to find it. Oh, what a pity.
A view that has featured on my blog before, shooting from Eastcheap Street shows off the hustle and bustle up close. This was the only successful image I took with one of my newer PS lenses so I am unsure how much more sharpness and colour you get when compared to the older S lenses. 50s 50mm F11.
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